BMW HAS BIG IDEAS

Ma­jor changes to give mid­dleweight GS range more punch and poise for 2018

BMW look set to back up a big­ger and bet­ter F800GS with a big­ger and bet­ter F700GS!

MCN spied a new F800 – be­lieved to be gain­ing 50cc - in April this year, so it’s not a huge sur­prise that our spy pho­tog­ra­phers have also now cap­tured what ap­pears to be the new F700 that un­der­pins the range.

The F700 and F800 share many parts, but the 700 has al­ways been the one to wear cast wheels, lose 10bhp in a softer tune, and ex­hibit a more mild-man­nered de­meanour. This new bike fol­lows that for­mat – but also very clearly has the same new chas­sis, en­gine and styling up­grades as the new F800GS – which MCN be­lieves will be­come the F850GS, mean­ing this vari­ant is likely to be an F750GS.

The all-new mo­tor is also ru­moured to have a 270-de­gree fir­ing or­der. There will be a mod­est boost in power and torque that should see the 850 nudge over the 100bhp mark, while the 750 is more likely to reach around 90bhp (it’s cur­rently 75bhp), tak­ing it closer to Tri­umph’s Tiger 800 (94bhp).

Be­yond the en­gine, which also boasts a big­ger ra­di­a­tor, the chas­sis is also new. It uses a cast alu­minium main frame in place of the steel trel­lis found on the cur­rent F700/800GS, and there’s a new curved swingarm. The fi­nal drive and ex­haust have also switched sides, and the sub­frame is also new, boast­ing re­mov­able pil­lion pegs which dou­ble as pan­nier out­rig­gers.

One of the big­gest changes vis­i­ble is the re­lo­ca­tion of the fuel tank. Al­ways a quirk of the old model, the rear-mounted un­der­seat tank, fuelled from the side near the pil­lion seat, has been ditched in favour of a conventional ar­range­ment up front. This al­lows the rear to be nar­rower, and to more pre­dictably man­age the weight bal­ance – and gives the new bike a more mus­cu­lar stance.

The fin­ished-look­ing state of the bike sug­gests we could see it un­veiled at the Mi­lan show in Novem­ber, with the bike on sale in 2018.